


Why is Roonil Wazlib?

by remaya



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - No Powers, M/M, Romantic Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:14:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23380750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/remaya/pseuds/remaya
Summary: Tom wouldn’t even have noticed that Roonil’s name wasn’t really Roonil if Roonil hadn’t called himself Hugo the next time he stumbled in at two am. Really, who lies about their name at acoffee shopinuniversity?… Harry Potter.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Tom Riddle
Comments: 30
Kudos: 692
Collections: All-time Harry Potter Favourites, Corona Challenge





	Why is Roonil Wazlib?

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by [Tabala](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tabala/pseuds/Tabala) in the [CoronaChallenge](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/CoronaChallenge) collection. 



> this was a lovely prompt to write for, Tabala! <3 honestly, though, i spent way too much time figuring out what everybody would major in and hashing out subplots that didn't make it into this one-shot :joy:

Tom’s staring at the screen of his laptop, the words of his latest essay blurring together, when the chime sounds by the door of Borgin and Burkes’ Brill Beverages. Tom closes its lid and sets it aside; he’s still adjusting to this night shift, and he’s not going to write another word until after he’s passed out in his dorm for at least five hours.

The student who’s just come in walks into the counter with a faint “oof,” and then scowls vaguely at the offending edge that had hit him in the chest. 

“... Would you like to order?” Tom says eventually, his mood somewhat lifted from seeing another student suffering just as much as he is.

The student looks up. The green of his irises is striking despite how bleary-eyed he is behind his glasses; his dark hair sticks out in all directions in a truly atrocious bedhead. Tom surmises that he is a disaster. 

A _cute_ disaster. And he’s fit.

Damn it. Tom catches himself near-ogling the student’s adorable, perky nose; he needs to sleep.

“Yes, right,” the student says after a long pause. Then, with the air of struggling to remember what someone told him, “Drink something… To-go. No caffeine.”

“What drink,” Tom prompts him, highly amused.

“I…” 

Tom, feeling some goodwill, possibly due to how badly the student is struggling, says, “Don’t strain yourself. How about a butterbeer?” Tea might knock him out, and he seems to want to stay awake.

“Yes, that,” the student says, relieved, and presses a crumpled bill into Tom’s hand. “Thank you so much, Tom.”

The student must have read his name tag. “And your name?” he asks, closing the student’s fingers around the change until he clutches it tightly enough.

“Roonil... Wazlib,” says the student. He doesn’t look like a Roonil, but then again, he might only be unfortunately named.

“You may wait at the pick-up counter, over there. It’ll be ready in a few,” Tom says, trying not to melt as Roonil-- really, how out of touch were his parents, naming someone like _that_ so stupidly-- stumbles over as directed and blinks grumpily, fighting not to fall over right then and there.

Tom adds a little extra sugar, for those doe-eyes. They’d be ridiculous on anybody else, but on Roonil, they’re just ridiculously attractive. Tom catches himself again. He _really_ needs to sleep.

Roonil takes the butterbeer with a mumbled “Thanks,” then staggers out of the cafe, narrowly avoiding a table, two chairs, and the doorframe while somehow not spilling a drop.

Tom shakes his head a minute after the door-chime stops jingling. Thoughts of how fine Roonil’s ass looked in those jeans occupy him for the next hour and forty-five minutes, until the end of his shift.

* * *

“Ron, what do I _do?_ He was so _handsome,_ and he gave me this amazing butterbeer, and I think he smiled at me at some point even though I’m a right mess--”

“Harry,” Ron groans. “Go to _sleep._ If I fail this interview tomorrow because of you, I _swear--_ ”

Ron’s not going to fail. Harry had had Sirius talk to Alastor Moody last week, and Moody’s already impressed with Ron’s potential. Ron would end Harry if he knew. “I’m sleeping, I’m sleeping.”

Harry lays awake for a while after that. He only sleeps after he sends an enthusiastic, incoherent text to Hermione to thank her for her advice.

* * *

As the clock ticks towards two am, Tom tells himself that his increasingly frequent glances towards the door are not because of Roonil Wazlib. He’s rather unconvincing.

Really, it would make his job a lot easier if Roonil would just appear… right now. Tom’s sleep schedule has adjusted-- he sleeps through the morning, wakes in time for his classes in the afternoon, does his homework, research, and networking in the evening, and works at Borgin and Burkes’ Brill Beverages from twelve to four am-- so he’s awake now, and the shift is much more boring than he remembers. Sure, there is the occasional student or professor, but Roonil is much cuter than all of Tom’s other customers.

Okay, and maybe Roonil’s ass is also better than all of Tom’s other customers’. Combined.

The door chimes. Roonil lurches into the cafe, reaching the counter with great difficulty, and _wow,_ he is just as attractive as last week, if not more, despite his rumpled sweatshirt. He smacks into the edge of the counter and reels backwards, shocked.

Tom lunges over the counter to catch him before he actually falls, cracks his head open on the floor, and necessitates a call to the ambulance.

“Sorry! Ah, thanks,” Roonil says, flustered. “I’m fine! I’m so sorry.”

Tom raises a sardonic brow and releases him, sliding back to his own side of the counter and righting the tip jar, which he’d knocked over but thankfully has a lid. “Butterbeer again today, or something else?”

“You remember?” Roonil squeaks, his flush deepening. Before Tom can get too embarrassed himself, Roonil continues, “Yes, a butterbeer. That’d be great.”

“Mmhmm,” says Tom. To remind Roonil that he wasn’t _that_ memorable, Tom only remembered his order by coincidence, Tom asks him, “Name?”

“Hugo Polkiss,” says Roonil.

Tom double-takes. “... Are you sure?”

“Yes,” Roonil Wazlib, or Hugo Polkiss, says as firmly as he is able while utterly exhausted. “Hugo. Polkiss.”

He doesn’t look like a Hugo any more than he looks like a Roonil. “Right,” Tom says, suspiciously, but a customer is a customer. Tom gives Roonil-Hugo his change, then fetches a paper cup. While he makes the butterbeer, he hears Roonil-Hugo muttering unhappily to himself, something about ‘security’ and ‘practice.’ 

Roonil-Hugo gratefully accepts the butterbeer, and then clumsily makes his way out. Tom is _extremely_ curious. 

* * *

“Hermione, I need help.”

“It’s just his new fixation,” Ron says, rolls his eyes. “Tom apparently _jumped over the counter_ the other day to catch him before he fell, and I now know far more poetic metaphors for dark eyes than I’ve ever cared to.”

“Oh, Harry,” Hermione sighs, patting Ron’s hand reassuringly. “I implore you to remember Cedric Diggory. And Cho Chang. And Malfoy. Ginny, even. And Ron, you _chose_ to be his dorm-mate.”

“Too bad I can’t take it back,” Ron laments.

“My best friends are so mean to me,” Harry pouts. “But I swear, Tom is different. He cuffs his sleeves at the elbow, and his _forearms…_ ”

“Remind me again how you intend to get into SIS,” Ron says, at the same time that Hermione protests, “I’m double majoring, I don’t have the time to be mean to you!”

Ron and Harry turn to Hermione at the same time to say, “Nerd.”

“History and political science are respectable fields,” Hermione sniffs. 

“ _Nerd._ ”

* * *

Over the next few nights, Tom has no luck in tracking down Roonil-Hugo during the day. Roonil-Hugo becomes Roonil-Hugo-Kurtis-Wesley-Jerry-Walton-Alan-Rupert-Sean-Daniel. This is unwieldy, so Tom simply thinks of him as Roonil Wazlib for now; it’s the closest match to a real name Lucius had found while scouring Hogwart's records. And yet Ron Weasley is clearly not Roonil.

Roonil’s arrival is signaled by the door-chime. Tom reaches over the counter to halt him before he stumbles into it and slides over his usual order of butterbeer and treacle tart.

“Thanks,” Roonil says, fishing in the pocket of his oversized hoodie for a bill. “I... ah, here.”

Tom rings him up and hands him his change. “Anything else?”

“No, thank you,” says Roonil. 

“And your name today?”

“Barty Black,” Roonil volunteers cheekily.

Tom sighs. “Are you even trying at this point? No, don’t answer that.”

Roonil grins and winks, then leaves with his usual lack of grace.

* * *

“Let me perish,” Harry moans, flopping into bed. “I can’t believe my own audacity. I _winked_ at him. An alter ego takes over my body at two am-- there’s no other explanation--” 

His goofy black dog plush, which has loyally guarded his bed since Sirius gifted it to him last year, does not answer him.

“You disappoint me,” Harry tells it, despondent. He buries his face in it anyways and feels a little better.

* * *

Tom’s boring shifts are now devoted to collecting details about Roonil. Roonil, for his part, stays longer and longer each night. He has two best friends who recently started dating; his godfather is goofy and likes to prank him; he is kind and sassy, and the one time he ordered caffeine he turned into more of a bumbling mess than usual, except he also smiled, and Tom is so far gone on him it’s ridiculous.

As time passes and the end of the school year approaches, Tom grows more and more frustrated with his failed attempts to find out who Roonil is. Roonil is a senior the same as him; if Tom graduates without figuring out who he is, then Tom and Roonil may never meet again. Tom is determined not to let Roonil slip through his fingers.

The week before finals, Roonil walks in with a laptop and sits down at the table closest to the counter, the one tucked into the weird nook before the bathrooms. After Tom’s latest customer-- a girl dressed up far too fancily for two am-- flounces out, Tom walks over and leans over Roonil’s shoulder to see what he’s doing.

“I’m surprised you can still type, Blaise, with how you can barely walk,” Tom remarks.

Roonil swats at him grumpily. “Go ‘way. And it’s Will Barnaby, today.”

“Barnaby’s a first name,” Tom points out. “Is that an application? Oh, it _is._ ” Tom squints and recognizes the Aurors’ logo. “You’re going into Defense?”

Roonil’s head thunks on the keyboard, typing a string of nonsense into the text box that’s labeled ‘First Name.’ “I can’t,” he says weakly. “I really, really can’t.”

“You know what,” Tom says, and sits down, pulling the laptop towards himself. He deletes the string of nonsense. “Tell me your name, and I’ll help you.”

Roonil turns his head and peeks at Tom from under his hair.

“Yes, really. You’ll have me take you out to dinner in return, of course.”

“Ah, thank you,” Roonil says, relieved, then pauses. “Wait, what?”

“Hm, we’ll have to do the financials too…” Tom skims over the rest of the application. It has many steps, but Tom can handle it.

“ _What??_ ” 

“I was admitted to Hogwarts on the Slytherin scholarship, have some faith in me,” Tom says, exasperated. “Unless you’re too squeamish to give me your address.”

“No-- I trust you. I meant, did you-- did you just _ask me on a date?_ ”

“You agreed. No take-backs. Now, we can finish these next two sections before four am if you start paying attention.”

“Believe me, I’m paying attention,” Roonil says, staring intently at Tom, or perhaps Tom’s hands. Tom casually flexes his forearms-- yes, that’s definitely interest. Wonderful. 

“Name.” 

“Harry Potter.”

Tom savors the moment. “Harry Potter,” he repeats, testing the syllables on his tongue.

“If you keep saying my name like _that_ , we might not finish the two sections today.”

“Nonsense.” Tom snorts to hide his frazzled nerves. He will be calm and smooth and Harry is now his boyfriend, and Harry will like it. “I won't put out before the third date. Now, your address…”

* * *

“We haven’t even kissed yet,” Harry whines into his dog-plush. “Apparently, he wants to _woo_ me. I don’t wanna be wooed. I’m already wooed! I just want him to _fuck me._ ”

Ron, having paused with one foot over the threshold to their dorm, turns around and marches right back out.

**Author's Note:**

> tom definitely proposes super romantically with all the grand gestures, and then goes like ‘harry, we’re getting married’ and harry’s too busy sobbing to remind him that that’s not asking, that’s demanding, which is something that they’ve been working on lately
> 
> also, roonil next gamora confirmed.
> 
> **Prompt:**
> 
> Non-magic AU. Tom got into university on a scholarship and works at a 24-hour cafe in order to afford to stay in. He always gets the midnight-4am shift, which is horrid to work but luckily he has all afternoon classes. One of his 2am regulars is a cute, grumpy student with dark hair and green eyes, who always seems half asleep and gives a different name each day. Tom hasn't had any success tracking him down during the daytime, the only name that was close to a real student was Roonil Wazlib, so instead he has devoted his boring nights to trying to work out details about "Roonil's" life just from observing him. 
> 
> (Stolen from CoS)
> 
> Must be consentual.


End file.
